Notes and Comments

From the 1950s to the 1970s the views of sex roles in general and of childbearing in particular that were held by women in the United States changed considerably.' Some evidence also indicates modest changes in ideas about sex roles occurred in the Soviet Union over these decades, but there is less reason to expect that similar changes took place in attitudes specifically towards childbearing. This article explores areas of stability and change between these two decades in Soviet women's emotional responses to pregnancy, childbirth, and newborn care and their sources of advice and support during the transition to motherhood. Similarities and differences between two cohorts, one composed of women who gave birth in the 1950s and one composed of women who gave birth in the 1970s, are discussed in terms of the prevailing family ideologies and social and economic conditions of the two decades. The study is based on the responses of a sample of urban college-educated Jewish women who had recently emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States; it is unlikely that a western scholar would be permitted to solicit information of this nature in the Soviet Union itself. One suggestion of change in sex role attitudes in the Soviet Union over these decades is evidence that in the 1970s women were demanding more male participation in domestic tasks. After interviewing recent Soviet emigrants, Maria Neimark, Adele Nikolskaya, and Natalia Sadomskaya concluded that, although in the 1970s young Soviet wives continued to bear most of the responsibility for household chores, their husbands were indeed somewhat more willing to contribute to these tasks than their fathers had been. Soviet researchers also note that, while most urban women still do more than twice as much housework as their husbands, a trend towards greater sharing has